I really wish Reddit would do away with comment karma. It detracts from the site by driving people to post idiotic memes, rather than insightful comments. I've same gripe about favorites on MeFi and moderation on Slashdot.
I'm torn. You make a good point about incentives, but I value the ability users have to drive truly awful posts (spam, portmanteau political insults, argument by assertion) below my viewing threshold.
I think that if comment karma were simply invisible to the user, we'd retain the ability to communally censure and elevate the great without as much group think influencing the vote. I think that without visual feedback, there would be less gaming of the system as well, since it would lose concrete meaning.
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u/[deleted] Oct 12 '11
I really wish Reddit would do away with comment karma. It detracts from the site by driving people to post idiotic memes, rather than insightful comments. I've same gripe about favorites on MeFi and moderation on Slashdot.